Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Thing From Beyond

Believe me, there are definitely better examples of pre-code Myron Fass than today’s post, but man oh man, do I love every single shitty panel of this one. It tries sooooo hard. It wants to shock and frighten you, make you gag! But the story is all over the place, and the artwork is so cheap, so abysmally crummy, it makes me wonder what exactly Trojan’s criteria for story submissions was. I suppose everyone can’t be Johnny Craig or Bill Everett but come on!

Gaines and Stan would have chucked Fass out on his ear if he had come into their offices with this one. But! I was just reading another story of Myron's from Journey into Unknown Worlds #32 called "Hunger Pains" which came out exactly one year after this one and it's a much better, the obvious weaknesses displayed in today's posts are somewhat improved upon here... it's still all very clunky, but in a fun sort of way. I actually like Fass alot, he's definitely better than Hollingsworth who's continued pre-code praise I find quite baffling.

I love the fact that everyone's in modern (for the time) dress, but Hugo's wearing a Lon Chaney Hunchback period costume. I also love the fact that here, as in other stories I've read and b-movies I've seen, the whole idea of plastic reconstructive surgery seems to be a crapshoot! "This could make you normal...or it could disfigure you even more! We really have no way of knowing!" I don't like those odds...

On the other hand, I can't really tell that Hugo looks much worse afterward.

There's definitely something about this one though--Hugo's plan to make himself a punching bag o' vengeance, his perverse silent encouragement in the thresher scene ("Go on, touch it! TOUCH IT!"), the nonsensical and throwaway fact that he's with the girl when the corpse lumbers in...and then, the crowning touch, the "body parts tree"! I can't say why, but it's all very appealing...

Karswell and The Vicar hit it on the head every time. This one falls into the 'so bad its good' file which applies to films mostly so why not comics? I'm looking forward to Horror Pariahs thoughts too. The comments here are just as fun as the comic scans!

So he was literally beating a dead horse..er..corpse....seriously this is one of the craziest stories i've ever read,even Skywald wasn't this nutty,and as for the art,yeah i can't tell if he looks uglier or not.

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